Plate 48).
Later, chiefly in the nineteenth century, the netsuke artist sculptured, often by a customer's direction, a person or an animal in the most beautiful material possible—the heart of ivory, for example—without taking inspiration from the original form of the material. And it is thus that one finds among the works of that period an influence less typically Japanese and sometimes Occidental.
The oldest known sculptor of netsuke appears to have been Honami Koetsu (1556—1637), an artist who lived in Kyoto. Subsequently, there were numbers of netsuke carvers, and some of them created actual schools, where both masters and pupils often indiscriminately signed their works without indicating which was which. Up to the present, some 2,700 different signatures have been enumerated. The best known of netsuke sculptors, none of whose works was ever signed, is Yoshimura Shuzan, who lived in the seventeenth century. His sculptures, which are almost always in colored wood and very light, have been sold in Japan for as much as five to six hundred pounds sterling. He had numerous successors who in their turn had pupils, and these signed almost all of their works.
The basic materials used for the creation of netsuke were of the most various kinds: wood (some six hundred varieties, it appears), ivory (elephant or walrus), teeth or horns of animals (deer, antelope, cattle), bone (fish, mammals, birds), nutshells, mother-of-pearl, tortoise shell, coral, amber, jade, onyx, rock crystal, porcelain, sandstone, metals, ceramics, lacquer, beaks of birds, pressed and lacquered sawdust, papier mâché. Some netsuke have even been carved from cherry stones. Of all these various materials it is wood that most collectors consider the netsuke medium, both because it is native to Japan and because the Japanese carvers knew so well how to reveal the inherent beauty of its many different varieties. Ivory, with its beautiful color and texture, was perhaps more highly prized in Japan because it was a rare, imported stuff on which the carvers took special pains, and it still runs wood a close second as the collector's favorite; this, plus the fact that ivory is much more "photogenic" than wood, accounts for the preponderance of ivory netsuke chosen for reproduction here.
There are netsuke of every possible shape. The older ones are often in the form of gourds, while later ones appear in triangular or round-button shapes called manju. Some are discs circled with metal or ivory and encrusted with gold (kagami-buta). Others are of colored wood, and still others, called obi-hasami, are in the shape of a C, so that they hook over the top of the sash. In this book, I illustrate only the more usual forms, but there are many others.
It is important to understand that it sometimes takes many months of work to perfect a netsuke. It is necessary first to choose the subject and the material, then to carve it, or sometimes to engrave it through several processes of which the results are often unbelievably delicate. Certain parts of a human figure or an animal—the eyes, for example—may be inlaid with precious metals, gems, coral, or mother-of-pearl. Some netsuke, once carved, were colored or painted by one or more of numerous processes. Finally, one finds large numbers of netsuke that have been covered with almost innumerable coats of lacquer—sometimes as many as eighty—and then once again deeply carved or inlaid.
In summary, it can be said that the most beautiful netsuke were all carved between 1600 and the end of the nineteenth century. They were particularly in style around 1688, in the Genroku era, but they reached their apogee around 1800. After the outset of the Meiji period, in 1868, the Japanese, taking more and more to European styles of dress and beginning to smoke almost nothing besides cigarettes, ceased to use netsuke. It was around that time that the export of netsuke to the United States and Europe began. Later the trade became so flourishing that a comparatively large number of netsuke were carved with only that purpose in view. These pseudo-netsuke, however, are immediately recognizable by an expert and even by an amateur who has become acquainted with the genuine objects.
Aside from certain private collections which are still to be found in Japan and which it is very difficult to view, it can be said that the most beautiful netsuke are now in private collections or museums in Europe and the United States. In Paris alone, the Musée d'Ennery has about three thousand of them, and some of these have, for connoisseurs, a universal renown. In the Netherlands, at the museums of Leyden and Amsterdam, and in London, at the Victoria and Albert Museum and the British Museum, there are equally beautiful ones.
The Diving Girl and the Jewel:
It was long, long ago that an emperor of China, desiring to make a gift of three magnificent jewels to the emperor of Japan, sent them to him by special emissary. But, in the course of the voyage, one of the jewels—the most beautiful of the three—was stolen by Ryujin, the Dragon King of the Sea. In desperation, the messenger arrived at the imperial court in Kyoto and reported the theft.
The emperor of Japan, eager to retrieve the jewel at any cost, dispatched his prime minister to Shido, a place on the Japanese coast not far from where the theft had occurred. The prime minister, having arrived at Shido, thought for a long time about ways to get back the jewel. He asked the fishermen about the habits of the Dragon King of the Sea. What he learned was not very reassuring, but his anxiety was somewhat allayed when he became acquainted with a young and beautiful ama or diving girl who fished for pearls. He took her to live with him in Shido, and after a year she gave birth to a handsome baby boy. The ama begged him to make the boy his sole heir. The prime minister, not daring to return to Kyoto without the jewel, ended by promising to do as she desired, but only on the condition that she go back to her occupation of diving and succeed in wresting the gem from the Dragon King's grasp. It was a frightening assignment, but the ama agreed to the condition and returned to her arduous work.
Again and again she plunged into the sea, going deeper and deeper every time, but her diving seemed to be in vain. One day, finally, at the very bottom of the sea, she found herself before the entrance of the Dragon King's palace. It was guarded by monsters the like of which she had never seen before. But she mastered her terror, and as she approached cautiously she discovered that all the inhabitants of the palace appeared to be asleep. Swimming as quickly as she could, she arrived at the foot of the Dragon King's throne, and there she saw the marvelous jewel gleaming in the cold undersea light. Without hesitating, she seized it and turned toward the guarded doorway to begin her long journey upward to the boat that awaited her on the surface of the sea.
But she was not fast enough. The Dragon King suddenly awoke and instantly started in pursuit of her. He was an even better swimmer than the ama, and she knew that he would overtake her long before she reached the safety of the boat. Then, as she was almost within his grasp, she remembered that there was one thing he could not bear: the blood of human beings. Since there was no other choice, she drew her knife from the band at her waist and cut a deep gash in her breast. Into this she slid the precious jewel as her blood flowed out to stain the water around her. When she looked back, she saw the outraged face of the Dragon King vanishing in a red cloud of blood. Mortally bleeding and altogether exhausted, she reached the surface of the sea and was lifted into the boat by the waiting rowers. She had enough time to point to the place where she had hidden the jewel, but her effort to speak was too great, and she quickly died.
The prime minister kept his word. He took their son with him when he returned to Kyoto to deliver the jewel to the emperor, and there he made the boy his only heir. In memory of the beautiful and loyal ama, he ordered the building of a monument that can still be seen at the temple called Shido-ji.
Plate 3
Diving Girl
Ivory
Unsigned
17th
